


Having My Dreams

by InterPlanetary_Redacted



Series: Faded Photographs [7]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff, Healthy Relationships, Introspection, Leonard POV, M/M, Mentions of Therapy, Sweet, minimal dialogue, relationship worries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28571589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterPlanetary_Redacted/pseuds/InterPlanetary_Redacted
Summary: “She’s not going to be a moody teenager,” Len rolls his eyes.“Were you or your sister?” Jim raises an eyebrow.“...Point taken, okay fine, I suppose we can go.”///Hello and welcome to the final piece of the series (which should appear as #7 bc I'm gonna rearrange them so that this comes before the finale) and it is entirely Bones' pov of the entire series p much except for the last piece.(Highly recommend reading everything else but I suppose this could be read stand-alone if you don't mind a lack of surrounding context/detail)
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Series: Faded Photographs [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882864
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Having My Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is absolutely the final piece in this series....That I have planned. Maybe one day I'd come back to it but I doubt it tbh, so I hope you enjoy!

When it comes to the way in which Bones met Jim, he supposes it could have been slightly better - showing a mild amount of regression before offering the person beside you some of your alcohol is probably not seen as the best way to introduce yourself to somebody and, really, he’d rather never know the general opinion of him on that first flight. 

There are several louder-than-necessary arguments about how much each of them drinks, as if either of them really has a place to comment on the other’s habits, and it dies down between them eventually.

Still, that time ends and they’ve become settled in relatively quickly, even if that means Jim rigged it so they were roommates, and he had to suggest hiding places for where Jim could be when Pike came searching for him. Not that the man hadn’t already had a feeling regardless. 

He’d had a front row seat (with audience interaction) to Jim’s quick change in demeanor once they’d covered the rough patch which came when Jim first saw the Academy psychiatrists. He knew, then, that Jim was much different than how he portrayed himself and he couldn’t help but admire the change that went between the two sides of him. 

When it came to attraction, he was very aware of how attracted he was to the other man - everybody knew he was attractive. But it was the emotional connection which snuck up on him. At the same time, he wasn’t entirely unsurprised that it happened when he has seen the man prefer studying with his glasses on more than going to parties like he tries to do to keep up appearances. 

Len wasn’t sure to be surprised by their slow-moving relationship, because he knew that Jim enjoyed sex. At least, he presumed as much since he knew that Jim  _ had _ slept with people in the first couple of months. Then again, Jim had sat him down within a week of moving their relationship onwards, talking about how much therapy he had been to which allowed him to be so open about the fact he wanted to take it slow with Bones - a nickname he knows he’ll never be rid of - because of the different values he places on long-term relationships versus the short-term care he gives his one night stands. 

* * *

From there it was a steady road of balancing one another out more often than not but being different enough for it to not be boring in their interactions. Something that Len was thankful for - Lord knows he and his ex-wife weren't doing more than just doing what they thought the other would like even from the beginning. (Something Len discussed in his own therapy, but it was something he hadn’t even realised that there was an issue with him doing that.) 

It helped that their conflicting schedules often led to them needing to carve out time to do something “fun” - who’s definition of fun it was varied greatly. 

* * *

Their last months of the Academy were an absolute clusterfuck, if he had to choose a word to describe, but never has Len been so thankful that he can’t leave Jim behind if it isn’t necessary. 

It  _ was _ unfortunate that even after the initial mess that had happened with taking Jim on the ship with him and everything which happened with Nero - not just because both he and Jim could do with more sleep than stress - his mother and brother came into the picture. 

Not that he minded taking care of Jim during this time, he wanted him to be safe and taken care of, but the entire situation was continuously being made more dramatic and, as such, stressful than it needed to be. 

Maybe the idea of therapy was a good idea, when Jim brought it up, but they were managing pretty well without it. If needed, however, Jim would get what he wished to feel secure by having them meet with a stranger to air any grievances. 

Len doubts that if Jim had any real issues he’d have kept it to himself for so long but that’s not exactly the point here. 

* * *

Being asked if he wanted to be in a long(er)-term relationship with Jim was not a shock, since it was sort of necessary to know (as though their going to therapy together wasn’t enough to say about their intent?) but it really got him thinking. 

He knows in the beginning that he ranted about marriage and how it was Satan’s Work and whatnot, but he wasn’t exactly being serious, and the idea they’d discussed regarding foreign marriages to The Captain of a ship made Len really think. Did he really think it wasn’t worth getting married? 

He watched Jim over a couple of weeks, before speaking to his mother. 

“I think I want to marry Jim,” he told her, speaking into the communicator when he knows Jim is definitely not going to be back soon - specifically because he had asked for Chris to take care of him for a couple of hours, and frankly he didn’t came back with 5 more books to read in a week in a new language they’d decided to master together. (Did they have an overabundance of padds in languages that Bones didn’t understand at this point? Yes, but that’s not something he should complain about.) 

“Alright. Why have you called me?” 

Why had he called his mother over this again? Right, his last marriage ended in flames and he barely got to see his daughter before Jim helped him out with that issue. 

“Would it be the right thing?”

“To marry Jim?” 

“Yeah.” 

His mother sighs on the other end of the line, and he can’t tell if it’s a ‘this answer is obvious’ sigh or a ‘i love you but you are wildly insecure’ sigh and he doesn’t know which he would prefer, frankly. 

“Len, I want you to think for a moment.” He nodded even though she couldn’t see. “You want to spend the rest of your life with Jim, correct?” 

“Yes.” 

“Marriage isn’t the issue you’re facing here, even with the pomp and how official it would make everything, it’s the idea of what happened before happening again.” 

“Well of course it is, I don’t want another failed marriage  _ and  _ to ruin the best relationship I’ve ever had,” he tells her, a hint of ‘I thought this was obvious’ in his voice, but she knows to not take offence he hopes. 

“Len, how often do you have arguments? And I mean proper rows, shouting and temper losing?” 

“Whenever Jim does something stupid, but doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong even though it’s happened several times before,” Len answers once thinking about it for a few moments. 

“Anything else?” 

“Not anymore,” he tells her honestly. They have no need to fight over anything bigger than who has drunk the last of the milk or something most of the time. They used to argue about his drinking and Jim’s consistent going to parties and coming back in a state - especially if Jim woke him, but even if he didn’t then Len would be frustrated because he would end up hurt. They ended once they were both a couple of months into therapy. 

“Alright, is there any other reason why a marriage between you may not work out?” 

Len paused, not sure if he should voice his thought. “What if he finds somebody better?” 

“That boy has been gone on you since the first time you met,” his mother dismisses. “He told you that himself, and he told me as well. He’s told us both, and Joanna, that he wouldn’t find anybody like you in the entire universe, and even if he did then he would choose you. Something you need to think about is if you want to be allowed to take the same privileges as his husband when you cannot be his doctor.” 

“Why would I not be his doctor?” Len interrupts, baffled more than anything at the thought. 

“It may be somebody else’s speciality, or you may not be around when he needs the operation to start,” she tells him as though the thought is obvious. 

“I suppose,” he relents reluctantly.

“My point, Leonard, is that there is nothing stopping him from already going out and finding somebody else and yet out of all the people he has met, he continues to choose you. Don't you think that he has the same thoughts? I hate to say it, but that boy has got some terrible issues he’s had to work through with and without you, and he’s  _ said _ that one of them is feelings of insecurity at a much higher rate than others. Don’t get me wrong, he covers it well, but he was shaking like a leaf in the wind when you brought him to meet me due to how afraid he was that I would disapprove. He followed Joanna around like a duckling when she asked him to play with him because he didn’t know what to do,” she continues, and she’s right. He knows she is. There isn’t any reason for them to not be married, since it has been over two years, and they don’t have to get married or even engaged now, and it would give Jim privileges that he wouldn’t have as just his partner or captain. 

“Alright, you’re right,” he admits to her, and she laughs lightly, carefree in the way that his mother always has been to him. He loves her for it, and it definitely helped him feel better currently. 

* * *

That was when an idea started to form, of an idea where they were married and - unfortunately for his past self - travelling through space at spaces he couldn’t mentally comprehend. He’d leave that to Jim. 

It was nice, and he felt warmer at the idea. 

Then Jim came to him and said that he wanted them to take Joanna to some resort planet with activities for them to do with Jo which  _ she _ wanted to go to, and he thinks it best to go now while they can still form good memories and she wants to go rather than being a moody teenager. 

“She’s not going to be a moody teenager,” Len rolls his eyes. 

“Were you or your sister?” Jim raises an eyebrow. 

“...Point taken, okay fine, I suppose we can go.” 

“It’s gonna be fun, don’t worry, I’m sure we can manage to have short amounts of time to ourselves while we’re there. But we’ll be gone for a bit more than a while, so I don't want to miss out on everything including things like this,” Jim explains. 

“I know,” Len agrees, thinking more about it. He doesn’t like knowing that when he comes back home in several years, his little girl is going to be more grown up than he wants to think of and - Christ Jim was right - going through a moody teen phase. 

Something for her to remember and cherish other than any calls they can make while out there. 

* * *

A ring was going to be necessary if he were to pull off this proposal, but he knows that Jim wouldn’t want anything flashy or that he could easily break, so simple and strong it was. 

When he had proposed to Joss, he could tell she was disappointed by the ring, and he didn’t want the same to happen here. But they were completely different people, Jim and Joss, and he knew Jim better than the back, of his own hand - has literally performed multiple operations on him when necessary. He knows Jim’s body, mind, and soul, so he knows that he won’t get this wrong. 

It would be perfect if he did it while they were off-planet with Joanna, he thinks, so it’s unfortunate that they end up getting a lift with Jim’s family. Everybody is making an effort, though, so he puts up with it and vows to find some time alone for the three of them when it’s relaxed so that he can propose. 

**Author's Note:**

> I do sincerely you hoped you enjoyed this, and if you haven't read everything else then please do, and tell me your thoughts both here and there! Comments and Kudos are great, bc it lets me know you enjoyed this piece and the series! I think this will just help wrap everything up from Bones' pov and I knooooow I promised it within a couple of days on the last piece but I was trying to do an assignment but I decided to give up and write this. It is due on the 14th and I've got some barely written notes including "and this woman does not recognise somebody looking like her??? damb oka it better b dark tho bc yikeee otherwise" when discussing Clytemnestra. Probably best to not ask. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed, mentally wish me luck on my assignmemt, maybe I'll see you again and maybe not!  
> Remember to mask up and just bc it's 2021 c-19 is still a thing :)))


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